


Understanding

by Jackeline Harkness (Jackeline_Harkness)



Series: Survival [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Friendship, It's Hard and Nobody Understands, M/M, Superhusbands (Marvel), winterbones - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 11:38:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6193693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackeline_Harkness/pseuds/Jackeline%20Harkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve has always understood Bucky, even when their opinions and tastes sometimes didn't run the same way... but his best friend's love for a certain ex-Hydra agent might be way too much even for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Understanding

Steve wasn’t all that surprised when the Avengers, who were pretty much his family by now, accepted Bucky among them, even if with some reservations. After all, they’d all helped him look for him, and were well aware of what his long lost friend meant for him.

Welcoming a brainwashed friend-turned-enemy when he turned out to be a beloved best friend, even if said best friend was still going through a tortuous recovery process, was one thing. Rumlow, however, was another story. For starters, he was a mean bastard who’d tried to kill more than one of them in multiple times, and had actually believed in what Hydra had been fighting for. Then, there was the whole thing where they’d been fighting against him and a stupidly small and inefficient Hydra squadron and they’d seen Bucky go for the kill. Steve normally wasn’t one for shooting first and asking questions later, but after what they’d been through and especially what Bucky had been through at Hydra’s hands, he hadn’t even questioned his best friend’s reasons. They’d all assumed Bucky was done with the guy when the struggle had ceased, but it had been when it all actually started, with Bucky staring in wide-eyed horror as Rumlow blacked out, and then trying to revive him. He’d had no idea of what the hell was going on, but Bucky had pleaded for him to help him, and he’d done so without hesitation.

He’d been unable to deny Bucky anything, even if it was support for his bizarre love for a Hydra goon. Everyone liked Bucky, because that’d always been the story of their lives, regardless of whether people also liked Steve or not, and so they’d been reluctant, but accommodating. Clint and Natasha had made it clear that they’d keep an eye on Rumlow; Bruce had said that he’d roll with things as long as the man didn’t unleash the other guy; Sam had taken it all as a step in Bucky’s winding way to recovery, and Thor was in Asgard. Tony had refused, only to agree to it after injecting a tracker into a still unconscious Rumlow. Steve suspected the thing was actually more than a tracker and had asked Tony about it, which had only gotten him a grin and a light kiss. He hadn’t pushed again, because as long it didn’t complicate things further, he had no objections to further precautions.

After waking up, Rumlow had made it clear that he’d been fighting for the greater good, even if he admitted that maybe it hadn’t been the best way to go about things. Still, he was surprisingly tame, and obviously tried to stay out of everyone’s way, not even poking his nose out of Bucky’s flat in the tower unless it was absolutely unavoidable. It seemed to suit everyone just fine, except, of course, for Bucky.

“I’ve been thinking of letting a few things run out, to tell JARVIS to not put them on the list, and then to have Brock go and get them from the common floor. Just so he gets out of our apartment, even if he doesn’t actually talk to anyone else.”

Steve had smiled at Bucky, but apparently the gesture had turned out too indulgent for Bucky’s taste.

“You’re actually fine with him being cooped up in there the whole time, aren’t you?”

Steve had never been able to successfully lie to his childhood friend, but he was also a brilliant strategist, so he deflected like a pro.

“I just don’t get it, Buck. I’m not judging or anything, but I really don’t understand. What is it that you see in him?”

Bucky had looked almost pained for a moment. He didn’t even try to give it back by mentioning Tony’s extremely long list of unusual defects.

“I know why you say that. You’ve only known him for a little time.”

“We worked together for a good while.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know him like I do,” he paused, a small smile on his lips. “You shoulda seen him when he was younger. So full of energy and dreams and ideals… he actually reminded me a little of you, back when you were a scrawny little punk who got into too many fights.”

“We never joined the army to kill. We joined because we believed in freedom.”

“But we killed. And so did Brock, even if he only wanted the world to be in order, and others to have better lives than he ever did. Maybe he ended up on the wrong side of things, but he always wanted to fight the good fight, you know? For all the good reasons.”

“There’s still some lines that should never be crossed. Genocide…”

“He’s gentle,” Bucky interrupted, and he wasn’t looking at Steve anymore. “And kind. You wouldn’t know that, because it’s buried there under everything the world and then Hydra have done to him. But he’s a good kid.”

Steve knew better than to argue with Bucky when he got that tone in his voice, that glint in his eye, but he was sure that if there had been any of those truly good qualities in Rumlow, they’d been burned out of him at some point during his career with Hydra. Bucky was so desperate for good things in his life, that he clung to the memory of Rumlow as a rookie, when he’d maybe had those ideals he talked about. He was maybe projecting himself on Rumlow, thinking that if he could redeem and forgive the agent, he could do the same for himself.

So he’d put up with having a proven traitor among them, even vouched for him because it made Bucky happy and he trusted the guy to not commit suicide via Avengers by trying to stab them in the back. He was also sure that anyone in the team could take him on whenever he decided to go off like a time bomb.

In the end, it had been a really stupid thing that put him at ease.

For some unknown reason, Rumlow seemed to get into something resembling a friendship with Bruce which, considering Bruce’s usual shyness and general weariness, wasn’t a bad thing.

He himself had been watching an old recorded game with Bucky, who ended up falling asleep. Steve finished watching the game and then took the pad that was lying nearby and started sketching, knowing that Tony would be working on War Machine upgrades until late… again. Eventually, Steve went to get a glass of water, and what he found when he returned to the living room made him stop cold in his tracks.

Rumlow had apparently come up from Bruce’s lab, and was putting a blanket over a still sleeping Bucky. He then leaned in and brushed a lock of hair out of Bucky’s face before kissing his temple. Rumlow looked at him for a long moment, with a barely-there smile on his lips, before turning around and returning to the elevator, most likely towards Bucky’s apartment.

Steve went back to his spot on the couch, but couldn’t stop thinking about the scene he’d just witnessed. He couldn’t help it, he found himself sketching it: Rumlow’s hand on Bucky’s hair, the blanket… but especially, the look on the man’s face, which he couldn’t describe with any word other than loving.

He almost got a heart attack when Tony woke up around two in the afternoon the following day and started leafing through his sketch pad. Of course he found _those_ sketches, and showed them to him with a grin on his face.

“Should I be jealous?”

“Don’t be silly,” he said, not looking at Tony.

“That’s a lot of sketches of hands and eyes, though.”

“It’s just… the way he looks at Buck…”

“Like he’s the last thing worth a damn in the world?”

“Yeah,” he smiled at the brunette.

“Yeah, I’d noticed,” he looked at one of the pictures again.

“I guess now I get what Bucky was telling me… about why he likes him.”

“Oh,” Tony paused. “Does that mean I should deactivate the explosive I injected into him?”

“What?”

“You know, along with the tracker. We didn’t trust the guy, so I thought I’d put in a little extra something. Just to be sure.”

“Tony, you do not inject explosives into people!”

“The good news is, it’s plenty stable!”

“Did you even run tests on the thing?”

“Now I have!”

As Steve tried to keep the fond smile off his face, he really understood how Bucky felt, being in love with a man that most of humanity might actually not get.


End file.
